How this relates to drupal.org build steps

1. Check the install profile directory out of Git from the appropriate tag and create a tarball of just that

git clone git://github.com/febbraro/profile.git && cd profile && git checkout $TAG
tar -czvf profile.tgz profile

2. Build the drupal-org.make file (if it exists) in --no-core mode to get the profile and all dependencies without core

drush make --no-core build-profile.make
?? Even though step one already has the profile code, there doesn't seem to be a way to have it build using something like drush make --no-core and get the same structure as it would have gotten when it recurses

3. Create a separate .make file to *just* build core and then move the directory tree from step #2 into place under the profiles directory

drush make drupal-org-core.make core
mv profile-no-core/profiles/profile core/profiles/profile